Creative Vision

Do You Have Creative Vision?

What do I mean by that question first of all. I’ll first make a short story a bit long. When I was learning more about photography, there was lots of reference to creativity and having a creative eye. I had trouble with this concept as I have always had an issue with creativity.

Over time and many more references of being creative, I’ve been able to start to discover and embrace my creative side. It took me a long time to tap into it. My secret that works for me. Pick up the camera and go. No matter how tired I am or not in the mood, just do it. There have been many times when I head out the door or set up a mini-studio for product-type shots and I get nothing. Other times, I’m hooked and can’t stop.

Where’s The Inspiration?

My inspiration actually does come from viewing so many of other peoples images. Through, Flickr, Gurushots and yes, even Facebook. There are images that I see and want to try to replicate. The more I try the more inspired I get to try other things.

Sometimes I’m given a task to shoot a scene or some equipment. These are sometimes intimidating as I’m shooting for someones interest. I get as much information as possible so that I can get a clear idea and image in my head. Sometimes I nail it, others time not so. And that it OK, it forces me to explore how to can better capture the required shot.

I remember once I needed to capture an entire room and to make it interesting. After several shots and reviewing them, I experimented with different lighting only to land on light painting.

Painting With Light

The technique of painting with light is fairly straight forward. Set your ISO to 100, aperture to f/11 and a shutter speed longer than 10sec. The shutter speed will be the only variable that changes depending on how much you are “painting”. For my final image, I “painted” for about 30seconds with a large flashlight around the room. The effect was sort of an underwater feel. Unfortunately, the image wasn’t selected for the poster. It doesn’t matter as I was/am proud of that image. I felt it was creative for me.

Get To The Point

So, what’s my point? Some of you are able to “see” your image before making it, your pre-visualization. I’ve got a tough time with that concept. Maybe you are like me and you have to actually be shooting to get the creative juices flowing to land on the image(s) you at least had an idea about. Either way, the more we do the better we get at it.